ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Climate-Smart Food Systems
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1624283
This article is part of the Research TopicBuilding Resilience Through Sustainability: Innovative Strategies In Agricultural SystemsView all 8 articles
Dual-stage herbicide regimen for tackling weed menace in wheat under multiple crop establishment systems
Provisionally accepted
Sunil Kumar
Ramanjit Kaur*
Ram Swaroop Bana*
Twinkle Jena
S.L. Meena
Teekam Singh
Seema Sangwan
Seema Sepat
Sk Ashraful Ali
Anchal Dass
T. K. Das- Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India
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Transitioning to maize-wheat system (MWS) in conjunction with conservation agriculture has emerged as viable option to tackle the multiple-challenges of yield stagnation, environmental threats and resource-depletion under conventional puddled-transplanted rice-wheat rotation in Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). However, efficient weed management and crop establishment strategies are critical to sustaining crop and resource productivity of MWS. To develop weed management options under diverse tillage systems, three crop establishment methods viz. elevated-bed + residue (EBRC), double zero-tillage + residue (DZRC) and conventional intensive tillage + residue (ITRI) in main-plots and five weed management approaches namely, pyroxasulfone (pyro; Pre-Emergence), Pyro (PE) fb Metsulfuron + Carfentrazone (MetCarf; Post-Emergence), Sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron (SulfoMet; Post-Emergence), unweeded check (UWC) and weed-free check (WFC) were compared in a split-plot design. Reduced weed population and dry-matter accumulation was noted with EBRC, relative to DZRC and ITRI.The growth and productivity of wheat remained higher in EBRC compared to DZRC but it was at par to ITRI. Among diverse weed management options, dual-stage spray of Pyro-MetCarf substantially reduced the densities of sedges (36.7%), narrow-leaved (64.1%) and broad-leaved (58.9%) weeds, compared to the UWC. Significantly higher weed control efficiency (80.3%), weed control index (79.4%) and lowest weed index was observed under Pyro-MetCarf combination compared to other herbicidal treatments. The same treatment also enhanced the wheat growth and yield (24.6%) over UWC and other herbicide applications. Conclusively, dual-stage herbicidal application of Pyro-MetCarf coupled with EBRC enhances wheat productivity by reducing the infestation of weeds substantially in IGP. The findings suggest that integrating dual-stage herbicidal application with EBRC offers a scalable and resourceefficient strategy for policymakers and practitioners for the wheat belt of IGP.
Keywords: conservation agriculture, Elevated bed planting, weed management, Residue, Zero tillage
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 10 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kumar, Kaur, Bana, Jena, Meena, Singh, Sangwan, Sepat, Ali, Dass and Das. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ramanjit Kaur, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India
Ram Swaroop Bana, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India
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